Friday, January 6, 2012

Drinkable Water Isn't Always Free!

     Lately I've seen several posts/emails about drinking more water and how it can save you money. Well, we live in west Texas and have always been told the tap water really isn't good for drinking. So we've been buying gallon jugs of spring water (about 74 cents each) without even bothering to try filtering, as we did in Florida. 
       Also, lately, I've been seeing ads and reviews for the Zero water filter pitchers that are supposed to be better than any other filtering pitchers. So I thought "Ok, maybe we should try filtering again and see what it saves us." So I bought a Zerowater pitcher and it included a TDS (total dissolved solids) tester. This tester was supposed to read "000" (thus the name Zero water) on filtered tap water. You're supposed to replace the filter when it starts reading "006." Here is the graph that shows how long a filter should be expected to last.


     So, guess what our tap water read on the TDS meter? 750! Unless, of course, the meter was faulty. So that means we can expect a filter to last us 8 gallons or less, according to the chart. A filter costs a minimum of $14, as far as I've found. So that's $1.75 a gallon, at least! And even after going through the filter, the water read "018" on the TDS meter. 
     So, for us, the Zero water filter is not worth it. Now, if you live where the TDS reading are "average" and you can get 25-40 gallons per filter, it might be worth it for you. Amazon has some pretty good reviews. But assuming we drink at least a gallon a day, we'd be spending about $53/mo on water. Buying the spring water, we're spending about $23/mo. Still more than I want to pay, but less than we would be paying to replace Zero Water filters.
 

4 comments:

  1. We used to get the Pur water filter until it started cracking and falling off our faucet. Now we just buy bottled water - but only for our Keurig. Our last Keurig died because we were using unfiltered water and not de-scaling it.

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  2. Yeah, back when we lived in FL, we had a a filter on the faucet (I think it was a Pur) and a Brita pitcher and we double filtered. But it sounds like that wouldn't work here. And with replacing 2 filters, how much are you really saving?

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  3. Good information about water filters! We don't currently have one. We've used a Pur and a Brita in the past.

    I'm your newest follower (from our blog buddy group!) :)

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  4. Hey thanks for following. :-) It might be worth filtering in certain parts of the country, but apparently west Texas has REALLY bad water. So not worth it for us. I think Walmart has a machine where you can get distilled water for 25 cents a gallon (bring your own containers) so I might try that. The trick is remembering to bring the jugs to the store!

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